Yuance Chen and Liren Lai Charged with Acting as Agents of the Chinese Government
On July 1, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that two nationals of China had been charged with acting as agents of the Government of China without prior notification to the Attorney General, in a case charged out of the Northern District of California; one alleged secret cash handoff in the case took place in Livermore, a city in Alameda County, California. The two men were arrested by the FBI on June 27 and made their initial appearances on June 30 in federal court in Portland, Oregon, and Houston, Texas.
Yuance Chen, 38, is a national of China and a legal permanent resident who resides in Happy Valley, Oregon. Liren Lai, 39, is a national of China who traveled to Houston, Texas, on a tourist visa in April 2025. A criminal complaint charges them with overseeing and carrying out clandestine intelligence taskings in the United States on behalf of the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China's principal foreign intelligence service. Those taskings included facilitating a dead drop payment of cash for information relating to the national security of the United States previously provided to the MSS, gathering intelligence about U.S. Navy service members and bases, and assisting with efforts to recruit other individuals from within the U.S. military as potential MSS assets.
As alleged in the complaint, Lai recruited Chen to work on behalf of the MSS in or about 2021. While in Guangzhou, China, in January 2022, the two worked together to facilitate a dead-drop payment of at least $10,000 on behalf of the MSS, working with other individuals in the United States to leave a backpack with the cash at a day-use locker at a recreational facility in Livermore, California. A dead drop is a method intelligence operatives use to pass money or information without meeting the recipient.
The complaint also alleges that the two continued to work on behalf of the MSS. In 2022 and 2023, Chen was tasked by Lai to visit a U.S. Naval installation in Washington State and a U.S. Navy recruitment center in San Gabriel, a city in Los Angeles County, California. While in the recruitment center, Chen obtained personal information for recruits that he appears to have transmitted to an MSS intelligence officer in China. The complaint alleges that Chen received instruction from the MSS on how to engage and recruit future Sailors and on methods for minimizing his risk of exposure, that he began contacting a Navy employee over social media and provided information about the employee to the MSS, and that he traveled to Guangzhou and met with MSS intelligence officers in April 2024 and March 2025 to discuss compensation and specific taskings.
The complaint further alleges that Lai traveled to Houston in April 2025 claiming the purpose of his visit was related to his business as an online retail seller and that he would stay for two weeks, but that on May 9, 2025, he traveled by car with a companion from Houston to Southern California, via New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona, before returning to Texas on May 15, 2025.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi said the case underscores the Chinese government's sustained and aggressive effort to infiltrate the U.S. military and undermine U.S. national security from within, and that the Justice Department will not stand by while hostile nations embed spies in this country. FBI Director Kash Patel said the two men were allegedly attempting to recruit U.S. military service members on behalf of China. U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian for the Northern District of California said the charges reflect the breadth of efforts by foreign adversaries to target the United States, this time through illegal intelligence-gathering operations aimed at national security information and military service members.
Chen and Lai are charged with violating Title 18, United States Code, Section 951, which makes it a crime to operate in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without notification to the Attorney General. If convicted, each faces a fine of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison. The FBI San Francisco Field Office is leading the investigation, with assistance from the FBI Portland, Houston and San Diego Field Offices and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The prosecution is being handled by the National Security and Special Prosecutions Section of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California and the National Security Division's Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. A criminal complaint is merely an allegation, and both defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
(Source: U.S. Department of Justice)
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于加州旧金山的 Phillip Burton 联邦大楼与美国法院大楼外墙及楼名牌，加州北区联邦地区法院所在地，本案由加州北区联邦检察官办公室起诉。Sam Wheeler 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons（本站按 16:9 裁取含楼名牌的画面）。 / Photo: The facade and name plaque of the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Courthouse in San Francisco, California, home of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; this case was charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. Photo by Sam Wheeler, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, cropped to 16:9 around the name plaque.
- 2025-07-01Yuance Chen and Liren Lai Charged with Acting as Agents of the Chinese GovernmentThis story
- 2026-10-3030 Months Each: Liren Lai and Yuance Chen Sentenced for Acting as Agents of the Chinese Government and Gathering Information on U.S. Military Personnel
